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Kgotla
A ''kgotla'' (English pronunciation or ) is a public meeting, community council, or traditional law court of a Botswana village and in rural Lesotho and South Africa. It is usually headed by the village chief or headman, and community decisions are always arrived at by consensus. Headmen usually work as the advisers to the chief. No one may interrupt while another is having their say. Because of this tradition, Botswana claims to be one of the world's oldest democracies. The custom of allowing everyone their full say is carried over into meetings of all kinds, from discussing a bill to a staff briefing. ''Kgotla'' can also refer to the place where such meetings are held. This can range from a few chairs under a shade canopy to a permanent ground with covered seating. In both senses, the term is a loan word in Botswana English from Setswana, where it means ''court''. In South African English, a ''lekgotla'' is a meeting called by government to discuss strategy planning. The t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Customary Law
A legal custom is the established pattern of behavior within a particular social setting. A claim can be carried out in defense of "what has always been done and accepted by law". Customary law (also, consuetudinary or unofficial law) exists where: #a certain legal practice is observed and #the relevant actors consider it to be an opinion of law or necessity ('' opinio juris''). Most customary laws deal with ''standards of the community'' that have been long-established in a given locale. However, the term can also apply to areas of international law where certain standards have been nearly universal in their acceptance as correct bases of action – for example, laws against piracy or slavery (see '' hostis humani generis''). In many, though not all instances, customary laws will have supportive court rulings and case law that have evolved over time to give additional weight to their rule as law and also to demonstrate the trajectory of evolution (if any) in the judicial ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Botswana
Botswana, officially the Republic of Botswana, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Botswana is topographically flat, with approximately 70 percent of its territory part of the Kalahari Desert. It is bordered by South Africa to the south and southeast, Namibia to the west and north, Zambia to the north, and Zimbabwe to the northeast. With a population of slightly over 2.4 million people and a comparable land area to France, Botswana is one of the List of countries and dependencies by population density, most sparsely populated countries in the world. It is essentially the nation-state of the Tswana people, who constitute nearly 80 percent of the population. The Tswana ethnic group are descended mainly from Bantu peoples, Bantu-speaking peoples who Bantu expansion, migrated into southern Africa, including modern Botswana, in several waves before AD 600. In 1885, the British Empire, British colonised the area and declared a protectorate named Bechuanaland. As part of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lesotho
Lesotho, formally the Kingdom of Lesotho and formerly known as Basutoland, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Entirely surrounded by South Africa, it is the largest of only three sovereign enclave and exclave, enclaves in the world, the others being San Marino and Vatican City, which are surrounded by Italy. Lesotho is situated in the Maloti Mountains and contains the Thabana Ntlenyana, highest peak in Southern Africa. It has an area of over and has a population of about 2.311 million. Its Capital city, capital and largest city is Maseru. Lesotho was formed in 1824 by Moshoeshoe I, King Moshoeshoe I. Continuous encroachments by Dutch settlers made the King enter into an agreement with the United Kingdom to become a protectorate in 1868 and, in 1884, a crown colony. History of Lesotho, It achieved independence in 1966, and was subsequently ruled by the Basotho National Party (BNP) for two decades. Its constitutional government was restored in 1993 after seven years o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Ocean; to the north by the neighbouring countries of Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe; to the east and northeast by Mozambique and Eswatini; and it encloses Lesotho. Covering an area of , the country has Demographics of South Africa, a population of over 64 million people. Pretoria is the administrative capital, while Cape Town, as the seat of Parliament of South Africa, Parliament, is the legislative capital, and Bloemfontein is regarded as the judicial capital. The largest, most populous city is Johannesburg, followed by Cape Town and Durban. Cradle of Humankind, Archaeological findings suggest that various hominid species existed in South Africa about 2.5 million years ago, and modern humans inhabited the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tribal Chief
A tribal chief, chieftain, or headman is a leader of a tribe, tribal society or chiefdom. Tribal societies There is no definition for "tribe". The concept of tribe is a broadly applied concept, based on tribal concepts of societies of western Afroeurasia. Tribal societies are sometimes categorized as an intermediate stage between the band society of the Paleolithic stage and civilization with centralized, super-regional government based in Cities of the Ancient Near East, cities. Anthropologist Elman Service distinguishes two stages of tribal societies: simple societies organized by limited instances of social rank and prestige, and more stratified society, stratified societies led by chieftains or tribal kings (chiefdoms). Stratified tribal societies led by tribal kings are thought to have flourished from the Neolithic stage into the Iron Age, albeit in competition with Urban area, urban civilisations and empires beginning in the Bronze Age. In the case of tribal societies ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Consensus Decision-making
Consensus decision-making is a group decision-making process in which participants work together to develop proposals for actions that achieve a broad acceptance. #Origin and meaning of term, Consensus is reached when everyone in the group ''assents'' to a decision (or almost everyone; see ''stand aside'') even if some do not fully agree to or support all aspects of it. It differs from simple unanimity, which requires all participants to support a decision. Consensus decision-making in a democracy is consensus democracy. Origin and meaning of term The word ''consensus'' is Latin meaning "agreement, accord", derived from ''consentire'' meaning "feel together". A noun, ''consensus'' can represent a generally accepted opinion – "general agreement or concord; harmony", "a majority of opinion" – or the outcome of a consensus decision-making process. This article refers to the process ''and'' the outcome (e.g. "to decide ''by'' consensus" and "''a'' consensus was reache ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Democracy
Democracy (from , ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which political power is vested in the people or the population of a state. Under a minimalist definition of democracy, rulers are elected through competitive Election, elections while more expansive or maximalist definitions link democracy to guarantees of civil liberties and human rights in addition to competitive elections. In a direct democracy, the people have the direct authority to Deliberation, deliberate and decide legislation. In a representative democracy, the people choose governing officials through elections to do so. The definition of "the people" and the ways authority is shared among them or delegated by them have changed over time and at varying rates in different countries. Features of democracy oftentimes include freedom of assembly, freedom of association, association, personal property, freedom of religion and freedom of speech, speech, citizenship, consent of the governe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Loan Word
A loanword (also a loan word, loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language (the recipient or target language), through the process of borrowing (linguistics), borrowing. Borrowing is a metaphorical term that is well established in the linguistic field despite its acknowledged descriptive flaws: nothing is taken away from the donor language and there is no expectation of returning anything (i.e., the loanword). Loanwords may be contrasted with calques, in which a word is borrowed into the recipient language by being directly translated from the donor language rather than being adopted in (an approximation of) its original form. They must also be distinguished from cognates, which are words in two or more language family, related languages that are similar because they share an etymological origin in the ancestral language, rather than because one borrowed the word from the other. Examples and related terms A loanw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Setswana
Tswana, also known by its native name Setswana, is a Bantu language indigenous to Southern Africa and spoken by about 8.2 million people. It is closely related to the Northern Sotho and Southern Sotho languages, as well as the Kgalagadi language and the Lozi language. Setswana is an official language of South Africa and Zimbabwe. It is a lingua franca in Botswana and parts of South Africa, particularly North West Province. Tswana speaking ethnic groups are found in more than two provinces of South Africa, primarily in the North West, where about four million people speak the language. An urbanised variety is known as Pretoria Sotho, and is the principal unique language of the city of Pretoria. The three South African provinces with the most speakers are Gauteng (circa 11%), Northern Cape, and North West (over 70%). Until 1994, South African Tswana people were notionally citizens of Bophuthatswana, one of the bantustans of the apartheid regime. The Setswana ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
South African English
South African English (SAfE, SAfEn, SAE, en-ZA) is the List of dialects of English, set of English language dialects native to South Africans. History British Empire, British settlers first arrived in the South African region in 1795, when they established a military holding operation at the Cape Colony. The goal of this first endeavour was to gain control of a key Cape sea route, not to establish a permanent settler colony. Full control of the colony was wrested from the Batavian Republic following the Battle of Blaauwberg in 1806. The first major influx of English speakers arrived in 1820 Settlers, 1820. About 5,000 British settlers, mostly rural or working class, settled in the Eastern Cape. Though the British were a minority colonist group (the Dutch had been in the region since 1652 when traders from the Dutch East India Company developed an Dutch Cape Colony, outpost), the Cape Colony governor, Lord Charles Somerset, declared English an official language in 1822. T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Setswana Language
Tswana, also known by its native name Setswana, is a Bantu language indigenous to Southern Africa and spoken by about 8.2 million people. It is closely related to the Northern Sotho and Southern Sotho languages, as well as the Kgalagadi language and the Lozi language. Setswana is an official language of South Africa and Zimbabwe. It is a lingua franca in Botswana and parts of South Africa, particularly North West Province. Tswana speaking ethnic groups are found in more than two provinces of South Africa, primarily in the North West, where about four million people speak the language. An urbanised variety is known as Pretoria Sotho, and is the principal unique language of the city of Pretoria. The three South African provinces with the most speakers are Gauteng (circa 11%), Northern Cape, and North West (over 70%). Until 1994, South African Tswana people were notionally citizens of Bophuthatswana, one of the bantustans of the apartheid regime. The Setswana language ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
